National Pit Bull Victim Awareness Day 2018

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UNITED STATES AND CANADA – OCTOBER 15, 2018 – National Pit Bull Victim Awareness marks its fourth anniversary on October 27, 2018 with a renewed call for the media to address the critical issue of pit bull attacks.

October 27 is National Pit Bull Victim Awareness Day, in memory of those who have been attacked or killed, their families and neighborhoods, and the vast network of emergency response services, animal services, police, doctors and hospitals, victim support groups, therapists, editors, reporters and legislators affected by these tragedies.

We want to thank editors and reporters who inform the public about this serious issue. If you are not able to report on National Pit Bull Victim Awareness Day at this time, please keep our information and contacts on file.

National Pit Bull Victim Awareness (NPBVA) tracks media reports of pit bull attacks and deaths in the United States and Canada on an interactive map. In the first 8.5 months of 2018, the media has reported more than 600 attacks involving people, including 23 deaths by pit bulls. Pit bulls killed 9 children under the age of four.

SOBERING FACTS

One pit bull in 40 injures or kills a person or another animal, compared to 1 in 50,000 of all other dog breeds combined.

Between January 1 – October 15, 2018, pit bulls killed 24 out of 29 people killed by dogs.

Every year, pit bulls are responsible for:
90% of serious dog injuries to people
Deaths of up to 85% of adults and children killed by dogs
94% of all dogs killed by dogs
92% of dog maulings by other dogs
92% of all cats killed by dogs
85% of the deaths of farm animals killed by dogs

Yet pit bulls are only 6.5% of the dog population in the United States and Canada.

THE NUMBERS ARE NOT DECREASING

So far in 2018, someone has been killed by a pit bull on average every 13 days. Since we formed 4 years ago, the media in the United States and Canada has reported an average of 1,000 attacks per year.

But most municipalities do not track attacks by breed, and an estimated 70% of attacks are not reported due to privacy laws and other restrictions. Reported attacks this year have been highest in Florida (55 news reports including 4 deaths) and California (40 news reports including 1 death).

In September 2017, the crisis caught the attention of CBC’s Fifth Estate. The report examined claims of lobbyists spending millions of dollars re-branding pit bulls as safe family pets versus the findings of doctors and medical centers.

The number of medical articles published in 2018 has doubled as doctors and medical centers express concerns about the disproportionate numbers of attacks by pit bulls compared to other dogs, as well as the disproportionate amount of damage. Medical findings indicate:

• pit bulls are responsible for a significantly higher number of attacks, as well as significantly greater trauma and bite injuries;
• pit bulls are more then 2.5 times as likely to bite in several places than other breeds;
• almost half of all injuries require surgery.

The issue is a concern to many people. Google Analytics reported 255,000 unique visitors to the National Pit Bull Victim Awareness website in 2018 by October 15, almost 30,000 per month, with an average session duration of 3:20 minutes. On our Facebook page, victims tell heartbreaking stories of their own attacks and those of family members. In more than 50% of serious attacks, the pit bulls are family dogs.

A previous investigative piece by La Presse (August 13, 2016) examined links between the US pit bull lobby and its influence on veterinary doctors.

In addition to the human toll, thousands of household pets are killed by pit bulls. In 2015, pit bulls killed 24,000 other dogs and 13,000 cats, as reported by Animals 24-7, a news organization that has logged fatal and disfiguring dog attacks for 35 years.

ABOUT NATIONAL PIT BULL VICTIM AWARENESS

National Pit Bull Victim Awareness advocates for more than 70 organizations and social media groups in the United States and Canada, including memorial and support pages for victims of pit bull attacks, breed-safety legislation, and nonprofit organizations. View Partners and Friends

OUR GOALS

• We want the media to put victims first by reporting the emotional impact of pit bull attacks on families and communities.
• We want the media to help taxpayers understand the cost of subsidizing pit bull breeding, the cost of pit bull attacks, and the economic issues of up-to-80% pit bulls in taxpayer-funded shelters.
• We want to see pit bull ownership and pit bull breeding regulated. Lowering the pit bull population will reduce the number of serious maulings and the euthanasia of pit bulls.
• We want pit bull owners to have liability insurance which fully covers the medical costs of victims. In most cases, victims are left to pay the cost of life-flights, ambulances, emergency hospital treatments, and numerous surgeries for years to come.
• We want to see the end of cross-border transportation of pit bulls with unknown and potentially aggressive histories. We want to see the cross-border transportation of pit bulls from kill shelters in the United States to Canada stopped.

HOW REPORTING ON PIT BULLS NEEDS TO CHANGE

We believe the media creates a dangerous false balance when it presents the pit bull advocate viewpoint as being as valid as that of public health and safety professionals on the matter of pit bull attacks.

We do not believe people with a vested financial interest in the promotion of pit bulls should be presented as disinterested public officials on the topic.

In a debate on “whether smoking is bad for you”, the media would never ask cigarette companies for their views on whether cigarette smoking should be allowed back in schools or give airtime to the tobacco industry’s “bought and paid for” research. Yet media frequently does exactly this by turning to pit bull advocates.

QUOTES

“Pit bulls caused over 50% of the bites to children requiring a trip to the operating room because of the severity of their injuries. Moreover, pit bulls were over 2 and a half times more likely to bite in multiple areas of a child’s body than any other breed.” – Dr. Michael S. Golinko, “Characteristics of 1616 Consecutive Dog Bite Injuries at a Single Institution”, Clinical Pediatrics, 2018

“With dogs bred to fight and kill and to be muscular and strong like pit bulls, one slip-up can be disastrous, even fatal, especially for a child.” – Dr. Laura Marusinec

“You can’t love instinct out of them, you can’t train it out of them.” – Dr. Douglas Skinner

“But instead of placing regulations on dangerous breeds, we have lobbyists and legislators passing laws to protect dangerous dogs, not their victims.” – Liz Marsden, trainer in Michael Vick’s case

“They’re borderline dogs. They’re right on the edge all of the time. Even if the dogs are not trained or used for fighting, and even though they are generally good with people, their bloodline makes them prone to violence.” – F.L. Dantzler, HSUS Director of Field Services

“Pit bulls are different; they’re like wild animals. They’re not suited for an urban environment. I believe we should open our eyes and take a realistic approach to pit bulls.” – Alan Beck, Director for the Center for the Human Animal Bond at Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine, West Lafayette, Indiana

“Pit bulls are a breed-specific problem. The public is misled to believe that pit bulls are like any other dog. And they just aren’t.” – PETA

“If you are trying to create submission in a fighting breed, it’s not going to happen. They would rather die than surrender.” –¬ Cesar Milan, TV dog trainer

“Most breeds do not multiple-bite. A pit bull attack is like a shark attack: He keeps coming back.” – Kurt Lapham, field investigator for the West Coast Regional office of the Humane Society

RECENT ARTICLES IN REFEREED MEDICAL JOURNALS

Journal of Orthopedic Trauma, 2018
Dogs and Orthopaedic Injuries: Is There a Correlation with Breed?
Findings: Of the 95 patients, 50% were the result of a pit bull terrier bite and 22% by a law enforcement dog. A total of 32% were attacked by multiple dogs. Pit bull terrier bites were responsible for a significantly higher number of orthopaedic injuries and resulted in an amputation and/or bony injury in 66% of patients treated.

Southern Medical Journal, 2018
Characteristics of Dog Bites in Arkansas
Conclusions: The results are aligned mostly with the general trends found in previous national and global studies, supporting the notion that family dogs represent a more significant threat than often is realized and that, among the breeds identified, pit bulls are proportionally linked with more severe bite injuries.

Clinical Pediatrics, 2018
Characteristics of 1616 Consecutive Dog Bite Injuries at a Single Institution
Findings: Infants were more than 4 times as likely to be bitten by the family dog and more than 6 times as likely to be bitten in the head/neck region. Children under 5 years old were 62% more likely to require repair; and 5.5% of all patients required an operation. Pit bull bites were implicated in half of all surgeries performed and over 2.5 times as likely to bite in multiple anatomic locations as compared to other breeds.

International Journal of Surgery Case Reports, 2018
Pit Bull attack causing limb threatening vascular trauma —A case series
Findings: Canine attacks by Pit Bull Terriers and Rottweilers can occur at any age and in any anatomical area of the body particularly the limbs. Any attack by these large canines can result in limb loss or loss of life. Immediate surgical exploration is required to prevent catastrophic outcomes, especially limb loss.

Injury Prevention, 2018
Effectiveness of breed-specific legislation in decreasing dog-bite injury hospitalizations in Manitoba
Findings: By comparing the rate of dog bite injury hospitalizations in Winnipeg (where there is a ban on pit bulls) and Brandon (where there is no ban), a 14.7% reduction in the rate of dog bite injury hospitalizations was found for people of all ages, and of 28.1% for people under 20 years.

Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 2018
Retrospective analysis of necropsy reports from 2001-2012 suggestive of abuse in dogs and cats
Results: Pit bull-type dogs (29/73 or 40%) were overrepresented in several abuse categories, such as gunshot and blunt-force trauma. This supports legislation for mandatory spay/neuter to reduce suffering.

Journal of Neurosurgery – Pediatrics, 2017
Neurosurgical sequelae of domestic dog attacks in children
A retrospective review of all children requiring neurosurgical consultation for dog bite at a regional Level 1 pediatric trauma center over a 15-year period.
Finding: Dog attacks on children requiring neurosurgical consultation commonly involve the family pet, which is usually a large-breed dog with no history of prior aggression.

American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 2017
3 Year Review of a Level I Regional Referral Pediatric Trauma Hospital
Results: Of the 56 cases that identified dog breed, pit bulls accounted for 48.2 percent of the dog bites, and 47.8 percent of pit bull bites required intervention in the operating room.

Clinical Pediatrics, 2016
Characteristics of 1616 consecutive dog bite injuries at a single institution
Results: Pit bull bites were implicated in half of all surgeries and over 2.5 times as likely to bite in multiple anatomic locations as compared to other breeds.

To publicize this month, every few days we are releasing another in a series of short one-minute videos to inform the public on the extent of the pit bull crisis. These videos are available on our web site, our Youtube, Facebook and Twitter pages.

FAQS

What’s wrong with pit bulls?
There are more than 25 media reports of pit bull attacks on people per week, and one death every 13 days. By comparison, there are approximately 15 shark attacks on people per year in the United States, with one death every two years.

What makes pit bulls more dangerous than other dogs?
People who own pit bulls are not necessarily capable of training them or stopping an attack.

Pit bulls are zero-error dogs. There is zero room for mistakes like gates, doors or windows left open or unlocked; for leashes, chains and muzzles breaking or coming loose; or for people not strong enough or experienced enough to prevent attacks.

Why are pit bulls so popular if they are dangerous?
Pit bulls are not more “popular” than other dogs, but they represent up to 80% of abandoned and stray dogs in shelters at any given time.

Advocacy for pit bulls is extremely disproportionate to the actual numbers of pit bulls. There are 78 million dogs in the United States, and only 3.5 million or 4.5% of them are pit bulls.

Millions of dollars are spent on pit bull propaganda to convince people they are safe family pets.

What about adopting from shelters and rescue groups?
There is no way to track the history of abandoned and stray pit bulls. Shelters and rescue groups cannot guarantee your safety and you will likely sign a liability waiver relieving them of any responsibility.

The pit bulls in your shelter may not be local. Thousands of pit bulls with unknown backgrounds are transported daily between shelters in the United States. Thousands of pit bulls with unknown backgrounds are imported into Canada from U.S. shelters. Quebec alone has 16 border entry points.

To promote sales and adoptions, many shelters hide the breed of pit bull type dogs, rename them as other breeds or call them “mixed breed”. There is no guarantee you are not adopting a pit bull.

But aren’t I helping if I adopt a pit bull?
No. Shelters are desperate to re-home pit bulls. There are so many surplus pit bulls, they are often given away free.

More than 1 million pit bulls are euthanized every year, but more than 1 million more are abandoned. Every adopted or euthanized pit bull is immediately replaced by another one.

The adoption failure rate for pit bulls 1 year or older is about 50% per year — about 10 times higher than the failure rate for all other breed types combined.

CONTACT

National Pit Bull Victim Awareness is a North American advocacy initiative for more than 70 organizations and groups including DogsBite.org, Daxton’s Friends, Dangerous By Default, Protect Children from Pit Bulls and Other Dangerous Dogs, Breed Safety Laws Action Team, and BanPitBulls.org, and is supported by PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

I’ll tell you what is unfair: being attacked by a pit bull and spending months or years recuperating. The scars and lost limbs, the mental trauma, the loss of someone who succumbs to death after an attack …while the dog is quarantined for 12 days and returned to the owners who perhaps, may pay a $500 dollar fine. Unfair are pit-and-runs and repeat offenders. The many other animals mauled and killed, the fact that people feel unsafe walking outside. That my dear is "unfair".

They want thier dogs they should be held fully liable for every death and disfigurement… they should be charged with the deaths maulings and lifetime medical care of the victims … your pitt … the dog breed bred for fighting to the death in dog fights…. not a pet… kills someone the pitt owner should be charged with murder… because they KNOW the dog is deadly… innocent people and pets should not have to be mauled to death and disfigured, because the dog got out, they didn’t have a muzzle… all Pitts should have to wear muzzles by law in public… would save the lives of people and pets… if they actually cared about the breed and not show boating and virtue signaling there would be a breeding ban on this dog given they populate most every shelter across the nation 50+%… but it’s about human ego and irresponsibility, not about saving pitt bulls, this is about the look at me I have a pitt bull and now I’m cool and I’m dangerous ego bullshit… you can’t even consider this a protection dog because you have to shoot it to death to get it to stop attacking… too unpredictable for a protection dog… not a pet… it’s a danger to anyone who has to live near the dog… most people can’t physically handle the dog, don’t know what a break stick is, can’t even get the dog to heel on a leash…. I was walking the trails and here comes this guy being dragged down the trail the pitt 15 feet in front… NO CONTROL over its head… another dog or person comes around the corner and the pitt owner couldn’t stop the dog from mauling anyone … the cult of irresponsibility

OKLAHOMAUpdate: The District Attorney has requested a judge be disqualified in the trial of the owner of the pit bulls that fatally mauled Cecile Short in 2017 in Oklahoma City due to allegedly showing bias toward the defense attorney and because she had to pay veterinary costs when her dog attacked another.

"Coleman ruled against showing any photographs of the victim’s injuries at trial. She banned the jury from seeing any police body camera footage and a firefighter helmet video of the dogs circling the victim’s body."

because WAY too many of us have to pay vet bills because other folks need big mean pit bulls and other dangerous dogs to make them feel big and those dogs are dangerous. THIS WOMAN WAS KILLED!!! MURDERED by a dog that should NEVER be owned by irresponsible people and most others

OHIOUpdate: The 14 vote margin upholding the pit bull ban in Parma is generating a recount on May 29.

"By percentage, the margin of victory is just .12%, which means the race isn’t over quite yet. Under state law, all local elections with a margin of victory of .5% or less must undergo an automatic recount. Ohio Revised Code 3515.04 states such recounts will be conducted by hand at the board of elections in front of all who wish to observe. Cuyahoga County has set the recount for this coming Wednesday, May 29."

FLORIDAThey’re trying to come up with excuses as to why the pit bull killed Christine Liquori at the Humane Society shelter. Perhaps, one day, people will realize they should not shelter pit bulls due to their genetic impulses.

Kathy Norris, a former volunteer coordinator, said in 2016 she and another woman were walking two dogs — one of them a pit bull — when the animals began to fight; the pit bull grabbed the smaller dog by the neck.

"I’m screaming for help, calling three different numbers for administrators, nobody picked up the phone, nobody was there," said Norris. "No management on duty.

"And now we have a dead woman," she said, referring to Liquori, "and it’s similar to what happened with me. It’s the same situation, nothing has changed."

They are spinning this in to a fundraiser aren’t they. "If we had just had more money for better facilities (and higher executive salaries) she would still be alive." No, if they did not insist on warehousing violent dogs no one wants, if they weren’t believers in live release rate über alles, and if they weren’t pushing the myth that "pits are just like other dogs" she would still be alive.

The national humane societies share very little with local chapters. It would be interesting to see what the legal expenses are for their aggressive reaction to any BSL or euthanization. Of course Best Friends employees were dispatched to advise this shelter what thir solutions should be. Likely not naming breeds when trying to adopt. If everyone had 3 or 4 bully dogs the world would be perfect.

What is needed: euthanize pit and pit mix/pit-type dogs.

What might result: more room in shelters for normal/safer adoptable dogs, more food to go round, and fewer incidents both inside the shelters and in our neighborhoods.

This story breaks my heart. This woman was faced with so many challenges in her life and she was turning it all around. She did not deserve to die like this. God bless her and my prayers are with her family. So much tragedy.

Unless and until Genetics is realized, the death toll from Pits and their mixes will continue. Dogs are not people and you cannot change 200+ years of breeding out of an animal with training. It is the exact reason that people are not allowed to own Lions and Tigers…

No Kill is not a good option. Large part of why there is such overcrowding because of dogs which are not adoptable (putting the public at risk) and should be put down. Guess what kind of dogs!

There is probably a limit to the amount of money most people would want to spend on continuing to warehouse growing numbers of vicious dogs. Reasonable people will put the needs of their own families first. The solution should be obvious. Reduce the number of dogs being sheltered. No-kill is a failure, made even worse by pit bull advocates who encourage a pit bull population explosion that they think other people should pay for.

It wasn’t due to funds, it is the Nanny Dog myth realized. So long as pro pits continue to disregard science and No-kill shelters exist, and are backed by the Best friends initiatives (money making off of the weaker minded) there will be maulings/deaths.

The tsunami of pits is causing these problems nationwide. Spay/neuter had become pretty well established and the numbers of dogs at shelters was stable or dropping. This remains the case for non-bully type dogs. A look at the population at almost any randomly selected shelter would support this. Perhaps the financial problem for governments will finally prompt a rational focus on the preventable disaster that sadly deaths and maulings has not.

“The cult of irresponsibility “

Hopefully SOMEDAY they will realize that Pits do theses things because, ITS IN THEIR GENES AND SHOWING THEM LOVE WILL NEVER CHANGE THAT !

When information and education don’t deter people from exposing their families to dangerous dogs, maybe legal liability will help get the message across.

I live in the Raleigh area and I am pleasantly surprised by the comments section on the newspaper website! There are some sane people commenting that agree with those of us in this group. I’m so used to seeing the PB nutters out in full force on those types of stories. Glad to hear there are charges pending!

One thing you won’t hear from #pitbull advocates: ideas on how to keep people safe from Pits attacks.

Why are charges pending against the cousin? Did he/she breed it? Design it? Sell/adopt it? Promote/advocate for ownership of Pitbulls? Do those that do so not have an ounce of culpability?

C’mon now, if this owner of one Pitbull is guilty, how much more guilt do organizations that promote ownership and even go so far as to fabricate the history of individual pits and the breed/type as a whole? We all know they do have MUCH responsibility for all this mayhem.

People will say it’s because of the way pit bulls are raised and that might contribute to they’re dangerous streak. However, the breed is the breed and aggression is built into them naturally, in my opinion.